Is SEO Dead? 1997 Prediction, Meet 2009 Reality

I shouldn’t take the bait — Robert Scoble’s latest missive that SEO isn’t important. But sometimes I can’t help myself for wanting to provide some perspective. I’ve covered the space going on 14 years now. I’ve heard the SEO is dead spiel over and over and over again. I feel like a revisit to the first major prediction of this back in 1997 is in order. Somehow, it has survived since then.

In that year, the Online Advertising Discussion List was one of the primary ways that internet marketers communicated with each other about trends and tactics. We didn’t have forums. We didn’t have Twitter. We didn’t have AdWords. And we walked eight miles through the snow to even use a search engine.

Richard Hoy posted this to the list in November 1997. I’ll bold the key part, as well as key parts in other quotes further below:

I’m beginning to believe that search engines are a dead-end technology and fretting over where your site comes up is a big waste of time. I’m now advising clients that we create good META tags, submit the site and then forget it.

I base this newfound philosophy on a couple of things. First, I’ve noticed on the sites we manage that the percent of traffic from search engines drops as the investment in other types promotion increase.

For example, The Year 2000 Information Center ( http://www.year2000.com/ ), a site we own and promote heavily through PR and co-promotional arrangements, had 6% of its traffic come from search engines last month. 94% came from sources such as online articles, co-promotion, and people using a bookmark.

I see the exact opposite situation in the traffic reports of sites that we do little promotion for. The bulk of their traffic comes from search engines. And that makes perfect sense because without promotion search engines are the only way people can find these sites…

How can such an unstable system survive? Moreover, how can you ever hope to be on top of it for long?

So in closing, I submit that search engines are dying. In fact, I would say they are dead already and just don’t know it yet – gone the way of the reciprocal link exchange and the “you have a cool page” award as an effective promotional tool. A victim of their own success.

Now compare that to what Robert Scoble wrote today in his “2010: the year SEO isn’t important anymore?” post:

I came away from this conversations thinking that SEO is getting dramatically less important and that SEM should be renamed to “OM” for “Online Marketing” since small businesses need to take a much more holistic approach to marketing than just worrying about search results.

So just over 12 years ago, we had someone saying pretty much the same thing that Scoble wrote today. You shouldn’t worrying about search, or that you should certainly be doing more than search.

Well, duh. I don’t know any search marketer worth their salt who suggests that anyone should fixate only on search marketing alone. As I responded to Scoble in my comment:

SEO, for the record, is the activity of ensuring you are well listed in any search results that are offered to a user for free. So small businesses don’t need to worry about SEO? Hey, the top box on Google is often taken up by a map with a “4 pack” or “10 pack” of listings.

Those listings are something that small businesses can claim. And if you claim them, adjusting things like your address (if not correct) or your business title (such as ensuring you are descriptive for important terms) can have dramatic effect on whether you get listed. And that, my friend, is also SEO….

As for renaming search marketing to online marketing. What on earth are you talking about? I mean seriously, where have you been since the internet broke out?

There’s always been online marketing, which is the umbrella term of marketing — well — online. It includes things like social media marketing, link building, email marketing, virtual worlds marketing and yes, search marketing. Some online marketers can do all these things. Many specialize, just as in the real world, someone might do outdoors advertising versus television ads.

The biggest issue for small businesses is one that we probably both agree on — that online can simply be overwhelming for them.

And if I go back to how I responded to Hoy in 1997:

People need to understand that they may not stay on top for a particular phrase, especially if its popular, for a long time. They certainly shouldn’t build all a site’s traffic around it. But they may still do very well for a variety of more obscure terms and topics. If they have meta tags and page titles relevant to the topic of their pages, this well help them capture this basically free traffic. But again, moderation, rather obsession, should be the rule.

They should have never been what people depending on for 100% of their traffic. But to invest a little time to pick up 10% or more of traffic? I’d hardly say they are dying. They certainly aren’t in the perspective of those who use them to find things. But those people who used to cruise along on traffic from search engines — and search engines only — certainly need to realize those happy days are over. They have to be part of a comprehensive publicity program.

You can read what others had to say back then here. But I think if SEO hasn’t died in the 12 years since it was first predicted, it isn’t going away any time soon.

SEO is more than ranking web pages.

SEO is not about tricking search engines.

SEO is not a complete online marketing plan, but…

SEO — and search marketing in general — isn’t something a smart marketer should ignore or just leave to chance.

And for anyone who cares, I just remain puzzled after all these years how anyone could think the answer is only think about search or don’t think about search at all. Why these extremes? Why an either/or?